


Three

by wouldyouliketoseemymask



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:10:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1975518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wouldyouliketoseemymask/pseuds/wouldyouliketoseemymask
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of three-sentence-long Batman drabbles based on Tumblr prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Comfort in Memories

_Victor Fries/Nora Fries, dancing_

* * *

 

He remembers their first dance as if it had taken place only moments ago; her blonde hair falling across her bare shoulders like silk, the way the fabric of her blue dress clung to her body and sent his heart racing, the twinkle in her eyes as she smiled and clutched his hand even tighter. The passage of time had brought much destruction—her health, his body, their lives—but his memory remains as vivid as ever, serving as both a blessing and a curse. At night, when the empty side of his bed is too much to endure, Victor places his hands on the cold glass off her chamber, closes his eyes, and resumes their dance.

 


	2. Red Polish

_Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy, slumber party_

* * *

 

"Gee, Red," Harley says, her brow furrowed in concentration as she carefully applies a coat of cherry-red fingernail polish, "I can’t remember the last time we had a slumber party." Ivy nods, smiling with motherly approval at the vine slithering across the stiff corpse of an Arkham Asylum guard, his bulging eyes wide in eternal fright and oblivious to the pig-tailed blonde cheerfully painting his nails. "Without a doubt, Harl," Ivy agrees, "it’s been far too long."


	3. Not on the First Date

_Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle, car ride_

* * *

 

He wets his lips with anticipation, tasting the lipstick her kiss left behind, and reaches into the pocket of his suit for his keys. He has barely had time to fumble through empty fabric before he hears the familiar purr of the Lamborghini, followed by her playful laughter. “Sorry, Bruce,” Selina calls out as the car’s headlights disappear into the night, “maybe next time!” 


	4. A Cat and A Crow

 

_Jonathan Crane/Selina Kyle, therapy sessions at Arkham Asylum_

* * *

 

"Miss Kyle," Crane greets her curtly, a clipboard thick with paperwork in one hand while the other fumbles in the pocket of his white medical coat. "Looking for this?" she asks innocently, retrieving a gold-plated fountain pen from beneath her cell mattress and extending it towards him, a coy smirk on her lips. "How did you—," Crane stammers, snatching it from her grasp as his cheeks flush pink with heated anger and embarrassment; he spends the rest of the session with a humiliated scowl and entertaining thoughts of revenge, and it is not until the drive home that he realizes his wallet is missing.


	5. Are We There Yet?

_Harley Quinn, the backseat of the Batmobile_

* * *

 

"Cut it out, Quinn," Batman said sharply, gritting his teeth and trying to ignore the throbbing headache that had worsened with every line of Harley’s repeated renditions of _Macarena_ ; she had begun cheerfully singing within five minutes of being handcuffed and tossed into the backseat of the Batmobile, and over an hour later showed no signs of stopping. To his great surprise—and suspicion—Harley abruptly fell silent; several quiet moments passed, and he half-expected to see an open window and empty seat when he looked in the rear-view mirror. Instead, he was treated to the sight of Harley fogging up the up the backseat’s bullet-proof glass with her breath, and using her fingers to create crude stick-figure drawings of him and Robin in the resulting steam. Batman sighed wearily, tightened his grip on the steering wheel, and counted the miles until Arkham. 


	6. The Definition of Irony

_An exchange between Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon after her father learns she is Batgirl._

* * *

 

"So how’d he take it?"

"He asked if I really wanted to spend my life dealing with Gotham’s scum alongside of a brooding, secretive man wearing a costume and with a trust complex bigger than the national debt. And I said ‘what, like _you’ve_ been doing for the past several years’?”


	7. Couples Counseling

_Harley Quinn and Joker in therapy_

* * *

 

"I just feel like he never _really_ appreciates me,” Harley said, her lower lip pursed into a sulky pout as Joker crossed his arms defensively in the chair beside her, “I mean, would it _kill_ him to say ‘thank you, Harley’ every once in a while?”

The therapist stared blankly ahead with glassy, unseeing eyes, his grin contorted and red against skin blanched a corpse-white shade.

"Oh, _sure_ , " Harley exclaimed, throwing her hands up in frustration, "go and take _his_ side.”


	8. A Disagreement Over Tea

_A silly argument between Mad Hatter and Scarecrow about iced tea_

* * *

 

"Alright, Jonathan," Tetch said testily, gripping the handle of his teapot with white knuckles in an attempt to calm his rapidly-thinning patience, "I ask you again: what is your favorite way to serve tea?”

"Iced, strong-brewed, unsweetened with a wedge of lemon," Crane answered, his reply smooth and without hesitation.

Tetch grit his teeth and set aside his tea in favor of a tool set, determined to adjust Crane’s hat until the professor finally delivered an answer Tetch was satisfied with.


	9. Not My Style

_Harley/Ivy_

* * *

 

"Geez, Red, I don’t know how ya can stand to walk around wearing a buncha leaves all time," Harley said, frantically scratching her foliage-clad (and quickly-reddening) skin, "I’ve only been wearing your outfit for five minutes and my patootie already feels like how Two-Face looks."

“ _Hah_ —that’s rich coming from someone who wears enough tacky spandex to clothe the entire Justice League,” Ivy shot back, surveying her own red and black reflection with disgust, “I’m disappointed with myself for even putting _this_ on in the first place.”

"Aw, come on Red, don’t be like that! It’s gonna make the _cutest_ selfie.”


	10. Unwelcome Affection

_Scarecrow falling in love_

* * *

 

Crane felt a part of himself abandon all rationality and become deliciously intoxicated as his mind grew hazy, drunk on the softness of her lips and the dark green iris of her eyes and the light fragrance of the flowers woven through her hair—it was _that_ part of him that welcomed her embrace and let out a moan of disappointed yearning when she broke their kiss, smirking as she playfully waved her fingers at him while walking away with his loot from the night’s earlier robbery, leaving him penniless and alone with his swimming brain.

He would make her _pay_ for this; even if he had to tear the entire city apart to find her, Crane would not rest until he’d hunted down Ivy and crushed every single one of her stupid plants beneath his foot before doing the same to her.

But maybe he’d just wait a while and see if she came back first. He’d forgive her then…but only if she kissed him.


	11. The Hollow Men

_Batman and Joker at "the end of it all"_

* * *

 

"So this is the way the world ends, aye Bats?"

Joker surveyed the burning remains of Gotham’s skyline with tired, satisfied eyes before twisting his bloodied lips into a jagged red grin and smiling upwards at his weary opponent.

"Not with a bang, but a laugh," Joker rasped, and let out a final, victorious chuckle before closing his eyes.


	12. Whoopsie!

_Harley trying to be a “classy” thief like Selina_

* * *

 

Selina watched with baited breath as Harley carefully navigated her way through a security system strenuous enough to rival an army obstacle course, complete with motion sensor tripwires and a seemingly-endless amount of laser beams, before finally reaching Gotham Museum’s most prized exhibit—an encased necklace resting on a satin display, dripping with diamonds and worth more than Veronica Vreeland’s trust fund.

The tip of her tongue sticking out between black lips and her greasepaint-coated brow furrowed in concentration, Harley set about following the instructions Selina had taught her in painstaking detail—cut, circle, carve—until the necklace was in her gloved hands and Selina breathed a sigh of visible relief.

”Yippee,” Harley exclaimed and pumped a victorious fist upwards, unaware of the laser inches above her head until the shrill ring of an alarm began to echo through the museum.

 


	13. Meow

_Catwoman, too many cats_

* * *

 

 “And this is Miffy, Buttons, Mr. Paws, Ollie, Madam Kitty, and Isis—”

“My God, Selina,” Batman said, his eyebrows raised in shock beneath his cowl, “how many cats do you actually _have_?”

“Hah! That’s pretty rich coming from a bird collector.” 


	14. Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen

_Riddler after the events of “Arkham Asylum”_

* * *

 

“I have to know, _I have to know_!”

“I’m afraid he’s been like this ever since he was brought in,” the Arkham Asylum doctor said somberly, shaking his head as he watched Edward Nigma frantically pace the confines of his cell, occasionally pausing to rip at his hair and grit his teeth in agony.

“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, _WHY WON’T SOMEONE JUST TELL ME_ —I HAVE TO KNOW HOW BATMAN MANAGES TO MAKE MY TROPHIES DISAPPEAR JUST BY PICKING THEM UP!”


	15. Secret Admirer

_Clayface meets his favorite actor/actress_

* * *

 

“I’m sure you probably hear this on a daily basis, but believe me when I say that _I_ am your biggest fan,” Clayface said, admiring his reflection in the dressing room mirror, “I’ve seen all your movies and read all your interviews, and I feel like we’ve _really_ got a connection here—I mean, we even _look_ exactly alike!”

He turned to face the man seated behind him, his world-famous, dazzling smile now replaced with an expression of eternal horror and buried beneath layers of thick sludge.

“Ah, well, you know how the saying goes—this town ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

 


	16. A Fearsome Riddle

_Conversation between Riddler and Scarecrow_

* * *

 

“Riddle me this, Dr. Crane: I make you weak at the worst of times, I keep you safe and keep you fine, I make your hands sweat and your heart grow cold—”

“—I’ve heard that one before, Nigma, and the answer is ‘fear’. Which, coincidentally, _you_ should begin to feel shortly—tell me, did you enjoy your drink?”

 


	17. Cheat Codes

_Riddler and Oracle arguing_

* * *

 

“You’re _cheating_ , aren’t you–you’re looking them up on the Internet!”

“Does it _look_ like I have a laptop in front of me, Eddie?”

Barbara watched with amusement as Riddler gnashed his teeth before stomping his feet and storming off in a fit of anger, and when she was confident he was out of sight she lovingly patted the copy of _The Biggest Riddle Book in the World_ concealed beneath her chair seat.

 


	18. Great Minds Think Alike

_Harley and Jonathan being psychology BFFs_

* * *

 

“I have to hand it to you, Dr. Quinzel, this co-therapy idea of yours has by far exceeded my expectations–as a team we’ve been able to provide Arkham with some much-needed improvements, and I dare say that our therapeutic treatments are more innovative and productive than ever before.”

“Right-a-roonie,” Harley replied cheerfully, continuing to fold a stack of patient admittance forms into paper planes and watching with delight as they soared across the room before landing among a pile of discarded, white-coat clad bodies. “And to think they said _we_ were the ones who needed help, hah!”


	19. Of Lipstick and Mischief

_Harley and Floyd. Predict a scene in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie._

* * *

 

“Hey mate, you’ve got something there on the back,” Boomerang said, gesturing towards Deadshot’s helmet.

Floyd reached behind his head and felt his gloved fingers graze across paper and tape; confused, he ripped the paper from his helmet and brought it forward to reveal a note displaying the words “ **KICK ME** ” written in bright red lipstick and adorned with crude scribbles of what looked to be a rather grumpy smiley face.

“Huh,” Harley said, the corners of her painted lips turning upwards into a bemused smile, “I wonder how that got there.”

 


	20. A Lesson in Fear

_Scarecrow in psychology class_

* * *

 

“It hasn’t escaped me that many of you unfortunately appear to be… shall we say, _disinterested_ in my lectures,” Crane said, opening his briefcase atop his desk as students watched on with half-closed eyes, “and so this evening I’ve decided to take a visual approach that I believe you’ll find to be a bit more intellectually stimulating.”

Crane covered his mouth and nose with a handkerchief embroidered with the initials _J.C._ before pressing a button concealed inside his briefcase and instantly flooding the classroom with a thick, green fog.

“One thing’s for sure,” Crane said, his voice muffled as he smiled behind the handkerchief, “you certainly won’t be bored.”

 


	21. Date Night

_Harley asks the Bat for anniversary help because she can't think of a present for Ivy._

* * *

 “So whadda ya think–red,” Harley jingled the clothes hanger holding a slinky red dress in her left hand before turning her attention towards the sparkly black number in her right, “or black?”

 An imprisoned Batman glared at her from across the circus dressing room, his body strapped tightly to a chair with thickly-coiled ropes and a ringmaster’s hat perched lopsidedly atop his cowl, before letting out a weary sigh of resignation.

 “The black one,” he answered begrudgingly, and Harley briefly contemplated his decision before uttering a dismissive “ _nah_ ”, tossing the garment unceremoniously to the side, and heading out for a night on the town with Pammy in her new red dress.

 


	22. Crimson and Clover

**Crimson and Clover**

_Harley/Ivy and flower crowns_

* * *

 

“Next you weave the stem through the– _Harley, are you even paying attention?!_ ”

Ivy looked up from the flower crown in her hands to see that Harley had chosen to forego the crafting lesson entirely and instead begun fastening crimson and black roses (a special hybrid Ivy had dubbed “Hivy”) to her hair until each pigtail was covered in an abundance of floral before finally turning to grin at Ivy with beaming pride.

“Looks great, Harl,” Ivy sighed, rolling her eyes as Harley clapped her hands in delight and planted a cherry-red kiss on Ivy’s green cheek.

 


	23. Petals and Straw

**Petals and Straw**

_Crane and Pam working together_

* * *

 

 “I must admit, Ms. Isley, that this heist arrangement has worked out far better than I expected it wou–”

 Before Crane could finish his sentence Poison Ivy had planted a kiss on his thin lips and sent him into a pheromone-induced, love-struck daze so overpowering that his swimming brain never even registered the bag of cash being plucked from his grasp.

 “Sorry, Jonathan,” Ivy said as she daintily side-stepped the corpses of fallen security guards, their faces contorted into a twisted expression of both horror and ecstasy, “but not every garden needs a Scarecrow.”

 


	24. An Unhappy Harlequin

**An Unhappy Harlequin**

_Joker/Harley, HQ is pissed because he forgot something utterly ridiculous_

* * *

Joker could never recall seeing Harley so angry before, not even during that time (well, _times_ ) when he escaped from Arkham by blowing a giant hole in the wall with smuggled-in dynamite and gleefully ran by her cell on his way to freedom without so much as casting a look in her direction–and she'd been _really_ mad then.

"How many times do I have to tell you?" Harley fumed, her face so red with fury that splotches peeked from beneath her white greasepaint as she jutted an accusatory finger towards the shredded bag of dog food scattered across the hideout floor, "THE BABIES DON'T LIKE THAT FLAVOR OF DOGGY CHOW!"


	25. There's No Place Like Home

**There's No Place Like Home**

_HQ/Ivy, HQ is trying to cheer Ivy up when Red finds herself locked up in Arkham again_

* * *

Ivy bore a sour gaze into her Arkham Asylum cell wall, silently fuming over her most recent incarceration; all she'd been trying to do was give those bulldozer operators a taste of their own medicine in the form of carnivorous plants, and once again Batman had swooped in to–

"PILLOW FIGHT," she heard Harley yell before a pillow connected with the side of her head and burst into a glorious explosion of fluff and feathers.

Ivy sighed, her bright red hair now covered in a blitz of snow-white feathers, and gave Harley a forced smile through gritted teeth before turning away and beginning to plot an especially gruesome plan of vengeance on Batman–preferably something involving a giant pillow.


	26. Final Jeopardy

 

**Final Jeopardy**

_Riddler is a contestant on Jeopardy! giving Alex Trebek a hard time._

* * *

"You lie, Trebek–my answer was correct!" Riddler shrieked, spittle flying from his mouth as security dragged him away from the _Jeopardy!_ stage and Alex Trebek cradled his profusely-bleeding nose. "I should have never wasted my intellect on such a blatantly rigged display of…ugh, that silver-haired Scotsman was right about you!"


	27. Stuck in the Middle With You

**Stuck in the Middle With You**

_Harley and Ivy get stuck in an elevator_

* * *

 

“I really don’t think that’s going to work, Harl...”

 Ivy’s voiced trailed off into a weary sigh as she watched Harley press button after button on the elevator’s control panel with a bubblegum-pink manicured finger, tongue sticking out from between red lips in concentration and her brow adorably furrowed, until every floor number was glowing and she turned to beam at Ivy before proudly exclaiming “ _there, that should do the trick_ ”.

 “Well,” Ivy muttered, massaging her green temples with her fingertips, “at least you didn’t use the mallet.”


	28. Yellow Petals

**Yellow Petals**

_Joker attends a wedding_

* * *

Joker stood in the middle of Gotham Cathedral’s petal-strewn aisle, gazing with absent boredom while his hired goons robbed an absurdly rich socialite (Veronica something-or-another—Joker was far too disinterested in the whole affair to bother remembering her name) and her upper-crust wedding ceremony attendants of their fine jewelry and thick wallets, and tapped his foot impatiently as he awaited Batman’s inevitable arrival; only then would the _real_ fun begin, but in the meantime he supposed he’d have to find some other way to amuse himself.

“Oh, come now,” Joker grinned, bone-white fingers grasping the yellow flower pinned to his lapel as he approached the bound-together groom and tearful bride, “don’t be so glum on your special day! Let’s see a nice, big _smile_.”


	29. Card Trick

**Card Trick**

_Arkham Asylum inmates play board games on a rainy day_

* * *

"What's gotten into Dent?" Riddler asked Scarecrow as they (along with the other puzzled occupants of the crowded Arkham Asylum recreational room) watched an enraged Two-Face being forcibly dragged away from the overturned table where he had been playing a card game only moments before, the deck now scattered across the surrounding floor and peppered with blood while his dazed opponent nursed a broken nose.

"No idea," Crane replied casually, and suppressed an accomplished grin as he tucked the even-numbered cards missing from Dent's deck into the sleeve of his orange jumpsuit.


	30. Unhappy Birthday

**Unhappy Birthday**

_Both Joker and Ivy forgot Harley's birthday this year_

* * *

"Twenty years working at Arkham and I never seen anything like _that_ before," the rattled asylum security guard said to his coworker, his face ashen gray and his hands shaking as he took a long drag from his cigarette, "and I don't care if they write me up for it, I _ain't_ going back in there."

"I just don't get it–one minute Quinn was sitting next to Ivy and Joker in the rec room, happy as can be, and the next she was going on a rampage and they were cowering beneath the board game tables."

"Yeah, well, apparently they both forgot her birthday and didn't get her any presents, so she said she'd make sure the day was so memorable that they'd never forget it again," the guard replied, solemnly shaking his head, "but I gotta hand it to her, I think it worked–I certainly ain't gonna be forgetting it anytime soon.


End file.
